Even if a Returnal PC port is still not confirmed, rumors are indicating that the PS5 exclusive's PC version is going to have official support for Valve's Steam Deck.
returnal screenshot
The aforementioned Returnal PC version recently popped up on SteamDB back in May, reports PC Gamer. Codenamed "Oregon," the SteamDB entry seems to describe a few things that can be found in Housemarque's popular roguelike. A few obvious words describe the Tower Of Sisyphus, which is a prominent location in Returnal added to the game post-launch.
Here are a few screenshots of the SteamDB entry, shared by Twitter user Nibel:
As you can see there, the clear allusion to Tower Of Sisyphus is in the second screenshot. But as Nibel noted, this also links back to the earlier NVIDIA GeForce Now leak that outed a few PlayStation exclusives coming to PC. God Of War was one of them, and we eventually got Kratos' Norse adventure on Steam. But apparently, Returnal was also part of the leak, prompting Nibel to say "it was only a matter of time."
On the purported Steam Deck support for the rumored Returnal PC version, there was an edit made to the entry on July 25th indicating support for the Valve handheld. This would be great for Sony if true, considering how Microsoft's first-party titles haven't played nice with the Deck. As of this writing, only a handful of these games are only listed as "Playable" and not "Verified," meaning they require tweaks, have bugs, and don't work perfectly well out of the box (via Engadget).
For now, the only confirmed PlayStation first-party game coming to Steam next is Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered. That's the one thing we're sure will come to PC, and perhaps Steam Deck support for that will come sooner than people expect. A Returnal PC port would be awesome though, since the PS5 exclusive was pretty well-reviewed when it came out.
This is a developing story.
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When Did Rumors Of A Returnal PC Port Start Popping Up?
As previously mentioned, the PS5 exclusive was part of the massive GeForce Now leak last year. Not a lot of people believed the leak was accurate, until games such as Death Stranding Director's Cut, Uncharted: Legacy Of Thieves Collection, and God Of War all popped up on Steam months later.
Now, on the case of Returnal, its rumored PC port gained more credence when a Redditor posted a handful of screenshots of the game with a clear PC graphics settings menu. The screenshots were uploaded to the Gaming Leaks And Rumors subreddit, and while far from confirmed, they do look convincing enough:
returnal pc port graphics settings
It is also not entirely out of character for Sony to release first-party games on PC at this point. They've already released Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone to start with, followed by other big-name titles. But for Returnal to come this early is a little out of place, since all first-party PS games on Steam came out several years after their original ports on PlayStation.
Related: There's Still An Undiscovered Secret In The Tower Of Sisyphus In Returnal, Says Dev